Years ago, I heard the author Gore Vidal talking about Franklin D.
Roosevelt, who was as hated in his own time by some people as
President Obama is
today. Vidal, who had grown up in the moneyed world of Washington society,
was baffled by the right-wing reaction.

"After all, he saved capitalism," he said. "I'm not necessarily sure
that was such a good thing, but he saved it, all right."

President Obama was scheduled to visit several Chrysler and General Motors
auto factories in Detroit today. Now, nobody is saying that this president
saved capitalism. But he did save the auto industry, at least for now, and
with it the state of Michigan.

Here's a funny thing about automotive industry bailouts that you may not
have realized. They have a history of working. A lot of people, including
me, were heavily skeptical when the government extended loan guarantees to
Chrysler back in 1979.

Not only did they enable the automaker to survive and eventually again
thrive, but the loans were all paid off ahead of time.

Chrysler's later troubles and the ill-advised sale to Daimler were not the
government's fault. The economy isn't all that great today, but we should
take a moment and think about how bad things looked less than two years
ago. It seemed very possible, even likely, that both Chrysler and
GM would go
out of business.

Ford looked pretty shaky as well. Economists at the Center for Automotive
Research told me at the time that if General Motors and Chrysler went out
of business, the ripple effect could mean the rapid loss of millions of
jobs. That consequences would have been something that looked a
lot like the
Great Depression.

But that didn't happen, first because of billions in loans the government
extended to both automakers -- a process even former President George W.
Bush thought necessary. After that, the government helped GM and Chrysler
through bankruptcy proceedings cushioned to help them achieve a soft
landing.

Today, Chrysler and GM are not only still alive, but making money in what
is anything but a strong market. GM has even paid back almost seven
billion, ahead of schedule.

Tom Walsh, an auto industry columnist, notes in today's Detroit Free Press
that the strings attached to the bailout helped the automakers reshape
themselves into leaner and meaner machines.

There was of course a downside; many people still lost their jobs. The
unions made concessions that mean that any new hires will not be able to
afford the middle-class lifestyle generations of auto workers managed to
achieve. But the industry gained a new lease on life, and it did so
because of a
partnership with government that was immensely beneficial to the so-called
private sector.

That ought to be as plain as a pickup truck. But on the Free Press's web
site, bloggers had posted a stream of hateful comments under Walsh's column,
saying the President was, among other things, a Maoist. Other than
exhibiting appalling ignorance about what that means, I think this nasty and
close-minded polarization is more disturbing than any boneheaded policy
decisions could be.

Increasingly, we seem to be a place where people scream at each other,
instead of talking to each other. If that continues, the auto
crisis could end
up the least of our problems.

For the last five years, I've talked about various politicians on Michigan
Radio, sometimes praising and sometimes criticizing them.

One thing you know for sure, however -- I have never taken any money from
any politician or interest group. If I did, Michigan Radio would fire me
instantly, as well they should. You may not like some of my opinions, but you
at least know they aren't bought and paid for.

We expect this standard from anyone practicing journalism. So, wouldn't
you think that we have a right to expect it to an even greater degree from
those who seek to lead us?

The next governor, whoever he may be (there are no women running this
time in either of the 2 major parties) will have to make major decisions on important issues to the people and
this state. Ideally, you wouldn't want him taking money for his campaign
from any special interest group. But that's how the game is played.

Here's an example. Take one of the most controversial issues, the decision
whether or not to proceed with a new, internationally owned bridge across
the Detroit River. Most governments and corporations support this proposal.

However, Matty Moroun doesn't.

That's not surprising. He is the sole owner of the Ambassador Bridge,
which has a monopoly over heavy truck traffic now.

Of the seven major party candidates running for governor, five oppose the
proposed Detroit River International Crossing.

One clearly favors it -- Speaker of the House Andy Dillon, a Democrat.

Another, Republican Rick Snyder, is leaning towards a new bridge. The amount
of money those men have gotten from Mr. Moroun is zero. But what about the
five who oppose the new bridge?

Well, Pete Hoekstra got at least $13,600 from Moroun. Mike Cox got the
same; even Tom George, a long-shot seen as the least likely to win, got
$3,400. Democrat Virg Bernero got twice that, and Oakland County Sheriff Mike
Bouchard and his political action committee raked in more than $45,000 dollars
combined.

To me, this presents a clear potential conflict with the public interest.
But the law doesn't see it that way.

Of course they don't; they have policy agendas they want to advance. But
Robinson isn't concerned with the contributions like Morouns. At least they
are out in the open.

What he finds much more ominous is that in Michigan, corporations or
individuals can legally spend hundreds of thousands on ads attacking or
promoting candidates -- without revealing who the individuals are who are
bankrolling such efforts.

That's not, Robinson said, because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision
earlier this year that said nobody can limit the amount of campaign spending.

The court said states had every right to require those putting up these
dollars to identify themselves.

But the Michigan senate has repeatedly refused to pass such a bill, and
without one, talk of campaign finance reform is essentially meaningless. Two
years ago, there was more spending by such anonymous committees than by the
candidates themselves.

What I'd suggest is that after the primary election is over, you lobby the
winners hard to do something about this. Or we just might end up someday
with the worst government that money can buy.

When I first became a journalist more than thirty years ago, we had
something called the "two-source rule" when it came to serious accusations that
would harm a public figure's reputation.

Our rule was that the information had to come from two separate sources
not connected to each other, and what they said had to be checked out as far
as possible.

The credibility of both sources also had to be examined. If there was
reason to believe their reasons for trashing someone were self-serving, you
were reluctant to give them credibility.

And you almost never allowed anonymous attacks. The idea was sort of like
the one governing our legal system; a defendant is presumed to be innocent
till proven guilty.

Now, that wasn't a perfect system, nor did we always execute it perfectly,
but as an ethical guide, it made a lot of sense.

Today, however, that seems to have been replaced by a new rule. Now,
anyone can say anything about any public figure, no matter how outrageous, and
we will speedily publicize it.

Two nights ago, I heard on a commercial radio station a report that it had
now been established that the legendary Manoogian Mansion party involving
then-Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and strippers not only took place, but
that Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox took part in it. I was stunned.

If true, this would not only seem to spell doom for Cox's gubernatorial
campaign. It would appear to indicate that the attorney general was guilty of
covering up a criminal conspiracy.

Then I got to my computer and examined the evidence. All this was based
on a Detroit TV station's interview with a lawyer who says a motorcycle club
member gave him a sworn statement saying he was at the rumored party eight
years ago and saw these things.

Turns out the accuser, one Wilson Kay Jr. has been convicted of numerous
felonies, and has now mysteriously vanished. Nor is the lawyer who has the
affadavit, one Norman Yatooma, an impartial party either. He is suing
Detroit on behalf of the family of an dead exotic dancer who was rumored to be at
the rumored party.

Attorney General Cox denies any involvement, and I tend to believe him.
The alleged party would have happened while he was running hard in the
closest attorney general race in Michigan history. For Cox, a Republican, to risk
everything for a sordid frolic with a bunch of Detroit Democrats seems
crazy.

But by trumpeting an ex-con's unproven claims, the media made this all
seem established fact. And some people will thereby always think Cox is
guilty. This comes, by the way, only weeks after a woman got massive publicity
for claiming former Vice President Al Gore tried to sexually assault her
years ago.

Never mind that the police dismissed her case for lack of evidence.

Never
mind that she only made her charges years after the event, flunked a
polygraph and had other credibility problems.

Never mind that the woman first made her charges anonymously and wanted a
million dollars for her story.

We gave her claims extensive publicity. Behavior like this may be
protected by our right to free speech. But it isn't journalism, it isn't
responsible, and it isn't what Michigan, the nation or the media need.

Well, I thought I'd figured out who I was going to vote for in the governor's race next week, but now something has sent me into a tizzy. The
candidates have been piling up celebrity endorsements. And while I realize that I
should be swayed by all these irrelevant personalities, I just don't know
which should matter the most.

For example, take Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas. He's
backing Attorney General Mike Cox.

He's even made a radio ad supporting Cox. Now, if you are one of those
skeptical, cynical types, you might ask -- what does Mike Huckabee know about
Michigan? True, he was once severely obese, like so many of us are, before
he lost a hundred pounds.

He also used to live in a double-wide trailer. And he campaigned here for
a couple of weeks two years ago, before finishing a poor third in the GOP
presidential primary.

But what special knowledge does he have about Michigan? Simply this. He is
anti-abortion. Cox is also anti-abortion, and has been endorsed by Right
to Life of Michigan.

Well, that should settle that. Except, if you'll permit me to turn my
brain on again, consider this. Abortion became legal throughout the United
States in 1973, through a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. If it ever
becomes illegal again, it will be either because of a Constitutional Amendment,
or by another decision by the Supreme Court. The governor of Michigan can't
do anything about it.

Wouldn't we be better off focusing on those things the governor can do
something about, like tax policy, job creation, and environmental protection
and trying to figure out who might do those things best? Okay, sorry. I'm
being logical again.

But in the interest of fairness, Cox isn't the only candidate touting
celebrity endorsements. Mike Bouchard, for example, yesterday announced that
he had snared the endorsement of Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County,
Arizona, who was briefly nationally famous for his decision to make all
inmates wear pink. Sheriff Joe said he was backing Mike Bouchard because he
would help stop the flow of illegal immigrants.

I have no idea, however, whether he would make them wear pink, or what
that has to do with funding education or balancing Michigan‘s budget. Bouchard
has an ace in the hole, however; he is also is being backed by Joe the
Plumber. Joe, who is from Toledo and whose name is really Sam, became famous
when he confronted Barack Obama over taxes during the last campaign.

Later, Joe, I mean Sam, lost his job after it turned out that he wasn't
really a licensed plumber. But he's still a celebrity.

The other candidates have their endorsers too. Pete Hoekstra has former
Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Andy Dillon, for example, announced
yesterday that he had the backing of the Michigan/Ontario Council of Bishops of
the Church of God in Christ.

And Rick Snyder has the backing of Bill Ford Jr., whose company has run up
$27 billion dollars in debt. So -- how do I sort out which celebrity
counts the most? This morning, I made my decision: I am going to wait to see
who Lindsay Lohan goes for. That is, if she comes out for anyone before she
comes out of jail.

Last week I drove across much of Michigan's vast Upper Peninsula, from St.
Ignace to the Soo and west to Marquette.

I finally ended up in Michigan's northernmost point, Copper Harbor on the
Lake Superior shore, more than six hundred miles from Detroit. In some
ways, the UP is a parallel, if much smaller, Michigan universe from the ones we
trolls inhabit.

By the way, they call us trolls, in case you hadn't heard, because we live "under the bridge." If there still are any trolls who think of the UP as
a place where men with ugly hats eat pasties throughout an eternal winter,
they are badly mistaken. The UP is incredibly diverse. In place of
beautiful gentrified towns like Birmingham, they have Marquette, with the added
beauty of Lake Superior and the harbor. There are blue-collar cities like the
Soo, with neighborhoods that have seen better days.

Calumet evokes Detroit, in a way. It has vast and imposing buildings that
rose in the era of the lumber and mining booms, when the city had far more
people. Today, some are deserted; others house antique dealerships or art
galleries in a fraction of their space.

To most Yoopers, the state's population centers are light-years away. One
young woman told me she didn't much care for our big cities. Turned out she
had once visited friends in Grand Rapids.

But while the Upper Peninsula may seem like another country, it's
anything but. They have the same governor, the same court system, the same laws as
we "trolls." They suffer from the same dysfunctional legislature and have
nearly as high a jobless rate.

They are also getting ready to vote in next week's primary election.
Indeed, I saw a forest of yard signs for local candidates.

Yet there seems to be little interest in the governor's race. Someone
planted a bunch of Rick Snyder signs along the major roads, and I think I saw
one for Pete Hoekstra. But other than that, the primacy contest was off the
radar screen.

Some of that may be because Lansing is seen as being a galaxy away, and
Yoopers know their votes are unlikely to affect the outcome. After all, the
entire top half of Michigan contains barely three percent of the population,
maybe 300,000 people.

But there is also a feeling, maybe even stronger than in the Lower
Peninsula, that none of these candidates are likely to make much difference. Democrats are especially disillusioned.

Mark Dobias, a colorful lawyer based in the Soo, characterized things this
way: "It's like being lost deep in a cold cedar swamp in November with a
wet matchbook.

"Survival until the next morning is seriously in question." Even if the
matches work, and we get a little fire going, he added that "more nights
are ahead, and no rescue is in sight."

None, that is, except for the one we decide to make ourselves. The hope is
to find the candidate most likely to help us do that. Yoopers are ahead of
the rest of us in a sense: They've survived the collapse of two major
industries, and then figured out a way to reinvent themselves, survive and in
some cases prosper.

July 19, 2010

July 16, 2010

People in Michigan have been talking about mass transit for years. But the only regional system in metropolitan Detroit could be threatened by a vote on the August 3 primary ballot. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry explains.

For years, we’ve been agonizing over whether to build some form of mass transit in Michigan, especially southeast Michigan.

Legislative committees take up the issue. Grants for demonstration projects are announced. Mass transit czars are appointed, and we are told light rail on Woodward Avenue or from Detroit to Ann Arbor is only a year or three years or five years away.

But nothing ever happens. There are a number of reasons for this. Gasoline is still relatively cheap. However nice mass transit might be, building it would be terribly expensive. We are an impatient people, and want to go where and when we want, without waiting.

And though all good liberals would stoutly deny this, too many of us think mass transit is an excellent idea -- for other people. We are too important and have too much to do, after all.

The biggest single problem, however, is that our so-called leaders have all the long-term planning ability of a six-week-old puppy. They haven’t even finished balancing last year’s budget.

Well, the good news is that we do have sort of a rudimentary mass transit system in the Detroit suburbs at least -- the bus system called SMART, an acronym for the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation. It serves 75 communities in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb Counties, and people rode SMART buses more than twelve million times last year. For tens of thousands, SMART is the only way to get around and get to work.

Without SMART, our economy would be in even worse shape than now. Yet it is facing a threat. The millage that provides much of SMART’s funding, and enables the system to get state matching funds, is up for renewal on the August 3 primary ballot.

If voters turn the millage down, the system could collapse. Yesterday, I talked to John Mogk about this. He‘s heading the group Citizens for a SMART Future, which is leading the drive to win the millage renewal. Mogk has been a law professor at Wayne State University for forty-two years, specializing in urban law and urban problems. Few remember now, but he came close to getting elected mayor of Detroit in 1973. He knows the region.

And he knows what the Detroit area needs most is jobs. He told me, “I cannot imagine being able to retain and attract business if the area doesn’t have a viable regional transportation system.”

SMART is far from perfect. While it serves all of Macomb County, some communities in Oakland and Wayne Counties, most notably Livonia, have selfishly opted out of the system.

Nor does it serve the City of Detroit, which has its own bus system. Yet the cost to the taxpayers is tiny. What SMART is asking for is not new taxes, but a renewal of a millage that costs the owner of a house valued at $200,000 a mere seventeen cents a day.

If you rent, renewing the millage costs nothing. This should be a no-brainer. Yet there are those who oppose it because they are selfish, or think any government subsidies are bad.

They should ask anyone with a disability. SMART provides special service, sometimes right to their homes.

Yes, the system isn’t perfect. But not voting to keep SMART would strike me as an extremely stupid thing to do.

Three years ago, State Senator Hansen Clarke started thinking about life after term limits took him out of the legislature, and decided he'd probably have to practice law. So he called the Institute for Continuing Legal Education in Ann Arbor, and talked to a woman named Choi-Palms-Cohen about books on probate matters.

During the conversation, he told her that he really thought of himself as a painter, and e-mailed her one of his paintings. She confided that she really thought of herself as a jazz singer.

They decided to have dinner, and met on August 17. A week later, he told her he'd like to get to know her better, and proposed they get married in Las Vegas. That day. He was fifty. She was thirty.

"Why not?" she said. They've been happy ever since. Incidentally, she didn't know anything about politics at the time.

And there is reason to think he might have a good chance. The incumbent, who has held the seat for fourteen years, is, of course, the mother of Kwame Kilpatrick, the disgraced and imprisoned former Detroit mayor, who two days ago was again hauled into court in shackles, this time to face a 19-count federal indictment.

Two years ago, when he was still clinging to power, Carolyn Kilpatrick almost lost her seat in the Democratic primary, getting past two former state legislators with only 39 percent of the vote.

Now, though the congresswoman will be fighting a total of five challengers, Clarke is by far the best known. The district is anything but homogenous. It includes the east side of Detroit, which is almost all poor and black, a handful of working-class, mostly white downriver suburbs, like Lincoln Park and Wyandotte, and the five virtually all-white and very affluent towns with Grosse Pointe in their name.

Hansen Clarke and his wife are, however, sort of a rainbow coalition in themselves. His mother was an African-American school crossing guard. His father was a Muslim from Bangladesh.

Hansen was raised Muslim, but became a Roman Catholic and for a time considered becoming a priest. His wife was a South Korean orphan who was adopted by a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. She says for her, religion isn't that important; people are.

Which is what Hansen Clarke says his message is. He made a brief run for mayor five years ago, and flirted with running for governor this year. I asked him if he were running for Congress because family scandal had left the incumbent vulnerable.

"Oh, god, no," he said. He said he's running because he thinks a congressman can really bring government home to the people, and because he thinks it would enable him to get something done on his signature issues, which include auto insurance and banking reform.

He optimistic. He said significant money is now coming in to his campaign. When started this race, a friend warned him against it, saying, "Hansen, why are you doing this? She has so much power."

Clarke, a boy who went from food stamps to Cornell University, laughed. "Politicians don't have the power," he said. "People do."

We’re only twenty days from Michigan’s primary election, and last night’s debate between the Republican candidates was more significant than most. Here’s why. This is the most crowded race in memory. Polls and historical trends indicate a strong likelihood that whomever wins the GOP nomination will be our next governor. And the race is very close. A Mitchell Research survey indicates a dead heat between Attorney General Mike Cox, Holland Congressman Pete Hoekstra and Rick Snyder, the Ann Arbor venture capitalist.

Other surveys have shown Cox or Hoekstra ahead, and some have shown Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard within striking distance. This debate, at Oakland University, was also the only one held in Metropolitan Detroit, which is home to half the state’s primary voters and all the major media markets.

I found the contest fascinating, if mainly in an appalling way. In my later years, I have developed an unfortunate handicap that causes me impatience with many political figures.

My problem is that I have come to live in a reality-based world, where two plus two equals four, and if I don’t have enough for my car payment I know prayer won’t get it done.

Curiously, the candidate who seemed to perform the reality check function last night was the one everybody agrees has no chance: State Senator Tom George, of Kalamazoo.

George does have one great accomplishment. As a medical doctor, he understands how horrible smoking is, and if it hadn’t have been for him, we probably wouldn’t have the restaurant smoking ban. On the other hand, he’s fought to try and limit embryonic stem cell research, even after it was approved by a statewide vote.

Last night, however, George correctly noted that Cox and Bouchard’s promises of massive tax cuts without any new revenues would drive the state into receivership.

Hoekstra, who started the campaign a year ago with the bizarre idea that this election would be about homeland security, also sounded like an adult. He talked about bipartisan compromise, and workable solutions. He also was honest enough to say it is time to take a hard look at our flawed school funding scheme, Proposal A.

The other candidates, however, seemed to prefer testosterone displays. Bouchard asked voters to join his “sheriff’s posse.”

Cox bragged about being a U.S. Marine and said he was willing to “charge the hill.” That‘s fine with me, if there are hundreds of thousands of jobs up there.

Much of the debate was sadly devoted to silly side issues such as who is getting what pension from which government, and a competition to see who could out-demagogue the rest in bashing immigrants. Bouchard won that one, by the way.

Incidentally Snyder didn’t show up for this debate; he decided to go campaign in Grand Rapids, thus avoiding another clash over whether he once sent jobs to China.

Whatever your politics, these are the facts: Three weeks from today, one of these men will be the GOP nominee for governor. If he then wins in November, he will face an daunting task.

Another massive budget deficit; hundreds of thousands out of work, and no rainbow in sight. I think we deserve to know how any of these candidates would tackle all this before we vote.

July 13, 2010

Powerful incumbent congressmen are seldom challenged in their party’s primaries. But this isn’t a typical year. Michigan Radio’s Jack Lessenberry caught up with a man who is wearing out some shoe leather.

State Senator Mickey Switalski is probably walking through a neighborhood right now, knocking on doors and sticking his home-produced newsletter “The Insider” in mailboxes.

He’s trying to do something everybody thinks is impossible, and trying to do it without money or a paid staff. He’s trying to defeat Sander Levin in the Democratic congressional primary next month. That’s Sandy Levin, now chair of the House Ways and Means committee, and the brother of U.S. Senator Carl Levin.

Levin has one of the best-known names in Michigan. Forty years ago, he missed being elected governor by an eyelash. He’s been in Congress since 1982, and hasn’t been seriously challenged in a long time. Yet Mickey Switalski is taking him on, because, as he told me, he thinks “It’s time for new blood. Congress wasn’t meant to be a lifetime appointment like the Supreme Court. Who gets to say when it’s over? The voter, or the incumbent?”

The polls say Switalski doesn’t have a chance. One survey found Levin leading by almost ten to one.

But that doesn’t faze Mickey, who at 55 has lived almost his entire life in the blue-collar Macomb County town of Roseville.

He says he’s used to being an outsider. He wasn’t supposed to win his first race, when he ran for Roseville city council long ago, but he did it by knocking on doors and hand-delivering his material.

After that, he went on to become a Macomb County commissioner, then won two terms in the state house and two in the state senate. Now, term limits mean he has to leave the legislature.

And he thinks that the voters ought to limit Sander Levin to fourteen terms in Congress. Swiatalski may not have much of a chance, but he does raise some interesting points as he campaigns across his congressional district, which straddles Macomb and Oakland counties. The nation, he argues, is drowning in debt.

He says, “I am telling you we can’t afford steak. It’s peanut butter and jelly, and you have to help do the dishes afterwards.”

What’s intriguing about Switalski is that he is hard to classify. Normally, the only people who take on powerful and popular incumbents are perennial gadflies and people who hear voices. Switalski is neither. If elected, he might be the only congressman fluent in ancient Latin and Greek.

Though he grew up in Roseville, he went to Louisiana State and was going to become a professor of classical languages, before he realized there were few jobs in the field.

So he got interested in politics. He got a masters’ in history, studied in Scotland, and married a girl from Glasgow.

In the Senate, he hasn’t been afraid of unpopular positions; he thinks taxes need to be raised, and was one of only four senators to vote to raise them on physicians.

But he’s also ready to do whatever it takes to get a balanced budget, new revenue or not. On the campaign trail, he thinks that what he’s doing is closer to what the founding fathers expected:

A guy, his wife and his 17-year-old son, going door-to-door, campaigning on the cheap, painting over signs from his last race in order to save money. He may not win. But he’s determined to give voters a choice. Somehow, it’s hard not to admire that.